Chapter 1 - The Pickle JarI sat on the edge of Eli's bed with the jar between us, the lid rattling faintly with loose change, and I understood, in the space of about four seconds, that my son was not confused. He was not grieving in some strange, childish way that made him imagine things. He was eight years old and he was telling me, plainly, in the only words he had, that he had watched his father hand a stranger money in exchange for a baby.
"Eli," I said, and my voice came out steadier than I felt. "I need you to tell me everything. From the beginning. Take your time."
He told me the same story twice, and it didn't change on the second telling, which is the thing I kept coming back to over the following days — children who invent things tend to improve the story each time, add details, embellish. Eli told it the same both times, flat and frightened, like a boy reciting something he'd been carrying alone for two weeks because he didn't know who was safe to tell.
My mother had gone down to the hospital cafeteria for coffee around eleven that night, leaving Eli in the family waiting area with a coloring book he wasn't touching. He'd wandered, the way eight-year-olds do when the adults around them have stopped watching closely enough. He found his father near the elevator bank on the maternity floor, not the surgical floor where I was, and Grant hadn't been alone.
"There was a lady in a gray coat," Eli said. "She had a bag like Grandma's church bag, the big one. Dad gave her an envelope. It was fat, like it had a lot of paper in it. She looked in it and then she nodded and then she picked up the thing that was making the noise."
"What noise, baby?"
"Crying." He looked at his hands. "Baby crying. Little, like it was far away, but I heard it."
I sat with that for a long moment, feeling the particular, sick vertigo of a version of events rearranging itself in real time behind my eyes.
"Did you see the baby?"
"No. It was inside a blanket thing. Like a car seat but not a car seat. She had it under her arm."
May you like
"And then what happened?"
"She left. Dad watched her go. Then he saw me and he got really mad and told me I wasn't supposed to be down there and I had to go back to Grandma right now." Eli's chin trembled. "He said if I told anybody he'd get in big trouble and it would make everything worse for you. So I didn't tell. But then everybody said she died, and I knew that wasn't true, because I saw her leave. So I started saving money. Because maybe if I have enough, we can buy her back the same way Dad gave that money away."
Related Stories
